Meet the Devs: Steve Bender (2015.04.28)

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:17

   hey guys thanks for joining me I'm here with Steve Bender Steve how you doing I'm doing all right good man thanks for coming on it's good to have you back from the UK going talk a little bit about what you do around here you're the animation director yes how did you get started down that path it's kind of seems like a real kind of a specialized yeah it was really weird and that um I was always really interested in art and also in acting in high school MH and I was originally going to go to school for graphic design and I was going to these different portfolio days and things like that and we were at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia uh another one of these portfolio days and my mom said come on just just one last one last school there's some place in in Sarasota

2. 00:01:06

   Florida and I'm thinking sarasona Florida man I don't know M I'm tired I just want a cheese steak and how old are you 18 I guess I don't know I Wasing you wouldn't be like 27 M this was last week but but uh we took a trip down there and found out that they had not only a graphic design department but also a computer animation department and I didn't really know what the hell that was but it sounded like a good idea mhm and um so I looked into it a little bit more and um was I remember I was playing uh Street Fighter 2 I think it was on the on the Super Nintendo yeah yeah I think it was on the Super Nintendo good call and uh with my friend Brian and we were sitting there

3. 00:01:54

   and I said you know what if I if I get accepted for computer animation at wringling I'm going going to Florida um and sure enough it came through and um I went from Parkland High School in Allen uh orfield Pennsylvania to uh to Ringling in Sarasota Florida and that's how it all started I guess so how did you hear about Star Citizen how did you get involved with this well I used to work at krych I was the animation director at krych on uh the entire crisis series I also worked on Rise uh and what became Warface mhm um and I think it was somewhere around 2012 we got murmurs of Chris Roberts was interested in doing something with the cry engine uh and there were some people

4. 00:02:43

   that were uh involved part-time and just sort of helping out things like that just a point in my life where I decided you know it was it was time for me to move on mhm and I was talking with people and one of the guys I was talking to was like what about cig what about Star Citizen I mean you like Space games and stuff like that and I was like well are you guys hiring and they said let me find out and that man Chris Roberts um and then so I was in I was in Germany at the time and Chris had come out to London uh for something and they flew me up and I met them for dinner and that's how that all started nice so you recently moved over here to the LA Studio where were you at before I was living in Frankfurt Germany oh cool 10

5. 00:03:31

   years dang must quite a quite a difference yeah well I've been even though I've been officially a resident of the United States since the beginning of November MH I've been probably in Europe more than here so um yeah I haven't quite completely gotten used to living in La yet I don't even own a car yet at this point there's good things about La especially in the case of the sunshine and the beach and stuff like that um but Germany was also really great yeah we're glad to have you on board and I just see the work you do and everything that's going into it and it's just it's the smaller things it's the the animation for the things you don't

6. 00:04:19

   really think about like is that a lot of Chris is doing and he's like saying we need this or is that you just kind of thinking a little bit about what makes this world seem more realistic I think it's a little bit of both when I was talking with Chris about uh animation and things that I find interesting in animation it's about the honesty of things and about the realism of stuff uh and things like for instance uh one thing that that always bugged me about uh firstperson Shooters is character weight shifts and things like that that that they don't it's this this aspect where a character can go this direction really fast and then all of a sudden kick back in this direction um and sports games typically do this really

7. 00:05:08

   well um but firsters Shooters don't um and that was something that I wanted to promote into into star citizens FPS it was also something that Chris was really keen on on going for uh so that's been a really positive collaboration there because there's we're both on the same wavelength as to you know what we're looking for within Star Citizen within the the greater Universe all right man so we're going to let you go before we have some rapid fire questions are you ready wo I'm ready for Rapid Fire questions favorite movie Star Wars which one uh I think the first one although possibly Empire Strikes Back

8. 00:05:56

   That one's my favorite I do like the fifth element I know know it makes me a little weird but it's too dude the fth awesome absolutely it's a little quirky uh 12 Monkeys never seen it um Guardians of the Galaxy I thought was absolutely brilliant absolutely brilliant favorite video game I think overall when you when you talk about games that um I really really remembered though the Mass Effect series hands down number two right not only number two but if you haven't played it there's a DLC for number two which one the shadow broker one so good there aren't many times in gaming where I've actually dropped a controller before Silent Hill was was one of them playing it uh in

9. 00:06:46

   college and being in Germany something like I don't know like six years later or something and walking down the street and it was all fuzzy and for whatever reason the song that I was listening to my headphones started making this crackling noise and I lost my all right last one favorite ship in Star Citizen Phoenix why Phoenix cuz it has a hot tub the second you get in that thing you're like you're like oh it's shiny it's pretty look there's there's oh there's seats in here I can fly you go in the back and you're like holy there's a hottub and a screen and it's like you just kick back you put your feet up there it's got a whole bar on the side there's like a a double bed past here and stuff like that it's just party

10. 00:07:37

    central on that thing absolutely you know that's the way to do it you Cruise in style you blow stuff up and at the end of the day you go chill out in the hot tub for sure I like how you think all right once again I'm James Pew this is Steve Bender and that's a Dev and you just met him that's so lame whatever dude it's better than the other ones